


Parallels

by Metronomeblue



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Alex ruins everything, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, Because I am bi and I like to feel good about myself, Bisexual Katie Russell, Bisexual Toshiko Sato, Bisexuals Galore, Canary Wharf is A Thing That Happens Differently, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Development, Diane and her Time Plane, Explicit Language, F/F, F/M, Female Characters, Female Friendship, Flashbacks, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Gwen is a BAMF, Honestly this is my favorite thing to think about, I'd apologize for shameless wish-fulfillment, John Hart is Problematic, Katie MOTHERFUCKING Russell, Katie Russell Lives, Life After the Doctor, Lisa Hallett Lives, Lisa is the Token Straight, M/M, Memory Alteration, Parallel Universes, Rose needs a map, Suzie is Sad, Team as Family, The Time Agency, but that's what fanfic is for, she's a naive BAMF but a BAMF nonetheless
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-13 01:42:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7957423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metronomeblue/pseuds/Metronomeblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, things don't happen as they should.<br/>(Owen Harper dies in 1999, and his grieving fiancee gets recruited by Torchwood.)<br/>(Jack Harkness dies in 1897.)<br/>(Canary Wharf suffers a very different fate.)<br/>(Captain John Hart finds himself in a parallel universe where nothing is as he remembers it.)<br/>Sometimes, the dead get a chance to live.</p><p>The AU to end all AUs.<br/>AKA, a ten-year daydream is realized by the author.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. May 1999

**Author's Note:**

> Does anyone else have a pet AU that they foster in their heads? That one AU that you thought up one day and built and built and built until it became a whole other world for you to live in? This AU is that for me. It is a labor of love I’ve been daydreaming on and revising and perfecting since I was eight years old and my parents let me watch a television show they probably shouldn’t have. This is my favorite story, made with characters I don’t own and characters I do, and events I’ve contrived and ones I haven’t. It is, in so many ways, what my ideal parallel universe Torchwood would be. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
> 
> Remember sweet Katie Russell from Owen’s flashback? His fiancee who died of an alien brain tumor? I liked her. I really liked her, and the possibilities she provided. And so this AU was born.

Kate Russell woke up to the smell of coffee and aftershave.

"Morning," she called, shoving a pair of glasses onto her face and smoothing hair from her face. "You're never up this early."

"Seemed a waste to go back to sleep," her fiance called back from the kitchen. "You're always up at the same time, so it made sense for me to just wait." Owen swept back into the room with his shirt half-buttoned and two mugs of coffee in hand. 

"Ah, the circadian rhythm," she joked, clinking her mug against his as he slid back into bed next to her. "Cheers, Doctor Harper."

"Thank you very much, Doctor Russell," he hummed, smiling. Kate grinned at him and took a sip of coffee.

It was going to be a good day; she could tell.

* * *

 

"And when, exactly, were we going to talk about this?" Kate asked, brandishing the folder at him. Owen sighed, slumped back into the chair and ran his hands over his face.

"I didn't want to worry you," he muttered into his palms.

"Worry me?" She said, her voice verging on hysterical now. "So covertly getting brain tests and CAT scans done is somehow less worrying than just telling me you're worried and in pain?" When he didn't answer her, Kate slumped, too, bowing her shoulders. She sighed, dropping the file on the table. "Owen, look at me." He did, albeit slowly and reluctantly. His eyes were red and he looked a mess, and there was nothing she wanted more than to just hold him, to clutch him so close to her that nothing could hurt him anymore.

Except, of course, what was hurting him was already inside of him.

"I love you, Owen. And I worry for you, and I want to keep you safe, and that's fine, because those are normal things for people who love each other to want." She sat next to him, and reached one hand out to comb through his hair. "If it were me," she asked, quietly and calmly, "What would you do?" He looked up at her, pausing for a moment, as if he didn't know how to say what he wanted.

"Anything," he said, something fierce and sad in his eyes. "I'd do anything to help you." Kate smiled, taking his face between her hands and resting her forehead against his.

"Then how could you think it would be any different for me?"

* * *

Kate Russell attends the funeral in the rain.

She is silent, still. Dressed all in black with eyes wide and vacant, she looks half-dead herself. Nobody speaks to her, because they know better. Or because they're afraid to.

So when a man in a suit and long coat comes up to her, after, when every acquaintance, friend and distant relative has left, Kate knows he's there for a reason.

"What do you want?" She asks, tears only now beginning to track down her face. He offers her a handkerchief, and she takes it without looking at him.

"I'm dreadfully sorry about your loss," he begins, in a soft Scottish brogue. "I'm Captain Alex Hopkins of Torchwood Three. I'm afraid we need a doctor."

"For something specific?" She asks acerbically, still avoiding his eye as she wipes away tears.

"Just in general," he grins at her.

"What does Torchwood do, Captain?" She doesn't acknowledge him physically, just continues to stare into the distance. Owen's grave is covered now, buried in a flat swath of dirt. She feels very empty.

"Well, Doctor Russell," He says, pausing to clear his throat. He looks around as the priest passes them, going quiet as if they're speaking of national security. She feels it's an awfully big build-up, and raises an eyebrow at his dramatics. 

He doesn't disappoint.

"We catch aliens." He looks at her curiously, as if she's going to laugh at him. She isn't. In her heart of hearts, she knew the minute he approached her that whatever he had to say was worth hearing, and it was.

She's sold already.


	2. Summer, 1999

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katie starts getting acclimated.

July and August, 1999; Cardiff, Wales

  
Katie met the rest of Torchwood Three a week later. Jules, the exacting computer technician who didn't know any of her coworkers by name. Gladwin, the administrator, with sandy hair and a ready smile. McClellan, the police officer, who was as repulsive as he was useful. Hannah, the grey-haired wren of a woman who knew the archives better than her own children. And of course there was Alex, the steady hand at the wheel. Their Captain.

  
She fit in better than she thought, with her obsessive tendencies and her latex gloves. Nobody at Torchwood could seem to let go. Gladwin told her one night that he hadn't seen his wife for more than a few hours in three years. Alex was the only one who went home at a normal time. Katie noticed, after a while, that Hannah didn't go home at all.

  
That was how she spent her first five months at Torchwood Three- doing autopsies and dodging bullets and forgetting everyone's name half as often as they forgot hers. It was impersonal in a lot of ways that working with normal people wasn't, but Katie had left normal in the ground with Owen and she wasn't looking back. She got used to it.

  
Which was why, on August 28, 1999, Katie was more than offended by Hannah's suggestion that she _get out more often._

  
“Honestly, dear, you've got such a pretty face. It's a waste to keep it locked up in here. Don't you want a husband someday?” Katie’s eye twitched, and she drove the scalpel she was holding into the thigh of her most recent deceased patient.

  
“Not really,” she said, voice deadly and quiet.

  
“You should get out more.” Hannah looked at her over her glasses. “Leave that Harper boy in the dirt where he belongs.”

  
“Don't you dare,” she hissed. Hannah looked deeply offended for a sparse moment before Katie began speaking again. “Don't you ever mention that name to me,” she said, her eyes so dark and empty Hannah flinched. “You don't know anything about me or him or anyone else because you've spent your whole damn life in a library!” By the end of her sentence she was shouting, and when she was done she stalked out of the hub like a particularly vexed assassin.

  
Alex sighed and rubbed his eyes.  
“Hannah,” he began wearily.

  
“She's an insolent brat, and I'll not be helping her anymore!” She huffed, collecting her files and marching to the archive. “Tell me when she comes to apologize,” she said shortly, slamming the door.

  
“Fucking hell,” McClellan snorted, taking a sip of his beer. He drank on the job too often for Alex’s taste, but the man pulled enough strings that they hardly ever had to break the law, and to Alex that was worth more than personal rules. “Like a bloody asylum in here.”

  
“Not quite as fun,” Gladwin said, carrying a crate of alien coins down the stairs. Upon reaching the closed archive door, he grimaced and set the crate down. “Hannah, I really need you to open this door!”

  
“Open it yourself, you twit!” She shouted back uncooperatively. Gladwin sighed again and struggled to get the crate into the archive.  
Alex ran a hand through his greying hair and began to make his way up the stairs.  
Only one of them actually needed him right now.  
Katie, meanwhile, had made her way to the docks, and was leaning on the fence at the end of the pier. Alex made his approach carefully, but she turned the minute he set foot on the old wooden boards.

  
“Is she that angry?” She asked, not a tear on her face. Alex smiled at the joke and nodded.  
“It's a wonder poor Gladwin is still around.” Kate winced.

  
“I am sorry,” she admitted. “But not as much as I should be.” A pause, the whistle of wind and the orange glow of streetlights serving as backdrop.

  
“She's a piece of work, Katie.” Alex said quietly. “But you don't need to encourage her quite so much.”

  
“Yeah.” She nodded, pushing off the bars. “I'll apologize in the morning.” Alex waited for her to walk away but she didn't. She stood for a long moment, her pale hair framing her face and her latex gloves still waxy at her wrists. She stood like she was waiting for something.

  
“See you then,” he said, with a small smile. She nodded once, stripped off her gloves, and began to make her way home. Wherever that was.

  
Alex was almost ready to confront Hannah when his comm pinged. “Yeah?” He asked, relieved when Jules’ nigh-automatic voice answered him.

  
“Sir,” she said. “There's a rift signature on Maple Street, in the antique store. If you could,” she began, and waited.

  
“All right,” he agreed easily. “Get Gladwin to put away Kate’s things. She won't be back tonight. And,” he said, having almost forgotten. “See you tomorrow.” He could hear the smile in her voice when she replied.  
“Yes sir.”

  
The locket he found on Maple Street, in the old antique store, would prove to be more trouble than it was worth. It sparked in his hand, like fireworks and soap bubbles. It showed him things- things in the darkness, coming.   
But he didn't know that yet. He didn't know anything yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There should be one more 1999 chapter, and then we're really moving.   
> This is a world where neither Jack Harkness nor the Doctor are around, so the role Jack played isn't either.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm open for feedback! Comments are motivating! :D


End file.
